#real-estate-decline-1992

#real-estate-decline-1992

I never expected to own a home. I wasn't born into generational wealth. I grew up poor. There was-and is-no big family inheritance coming my way. Not property. Not cash. Not stocks or bonds or whatever financial instrument one might trade or sell or leverage to join the landed class.

Both experts acknowledge the brewing trouble in the private credit sector, emphasizing that while risks are present, they do not believe a financial crisis is unavoidable.

Deutsche Bank AG New York Branch, through an affiliate, took ownership of the three office towers in a streamlined foreclosure process, according to documents filed on Jan. 20 with the Alameda County Recorder's Office. The unpaid debt for the three office buildings totals $442.1 million, the financial titan's affiliate stated in the filing, which was a deed in lieu of foreclosure, the county records show. The original loan that Deutsche Bank provided to Starwood totaled $364.5 million, Alameda County real estate records show.

Existing home sales fell 8.4% from December to January, the National Association of Realtors reported Thursday. Economists had expected a 4.6% monthly drop, according to WSJ data. Sales were down 4.4% from a year earlier, hitting a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.91 million. Zoom in: The decline was most acute for single-family homes, where sales fell 9%. Regionally, the West was down 10.3%, the South 9% and the Midwest 7.1%, while the Northeast rose 5.9%.

Investors own roughly one in six of California's single-family residences. That's what my trusty spreadsheet found after reviewing a BatchData report that estimates investor ownership of houses and townhomes nationwide. Investors in this study include everything from giant companies controlling thousands of houses to folks with a small collection of rentals to short-term rental operators to people with a second home.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, rents have jumped nearly 28% in past five years. Companies such as Flex, Livble and, more recently, Affirm, say breaking rent into multiple payments can help renters manage cash flow. But consumer advocates warn the products typically function like short-term loans, layering fees onto already strained budgets and, in some cases, carrying triple-digit effective interest rates - raising questions about whether they ease financial pressure or deepen it.

By comparing home values, mortgage rates and household incomes, Attom determined the share of income devoured by a home purchase. Splitting those 36 counties into three slices helps show how the homebuying burden has changed from 2025's fourth quarter to Not-so-recent lows in buying's financial burden - a decade-plus ago, just after the Great Recession slashed prices. Yes, affordability may be improving in early 2026, but these figures highlight how far affordability has fallen.